November 9, 2025

The next of Jack Wilkie’s bad Bible Study practices is pitting the Bible against itself. The way I often see this one expressed is in a questioning sort of manner suggesting since the Bible seems to make two contradictory points we can’t be sure of a position. This is kind of like someone saying they know where London is, and in response someone says “are you sure because there is a London in Ontario and one in England.” The questioner is being purposely obtuse in effort to sound wise or informed. Further they are trying to deconstruct a fairly obvious statement about the world and how it works. 

Jack offers a different kind of example which is still quite helpful.  

“1 Peter 3:21 says baptism now saves you.”

“Oh yeah? Well Ephesians 2:8-9 says we’re saved by grace through faith and not works.”

“But James 2:17 says faith without works is dead.”

“Yeah but Romans 3:28 says we’re saved by faith apart from works.”

See the problem here? The Bible does say all of those things, it’s true. But to engage in what I call “Scripture Wars” like this makes a big implication that I don’t think we want to make – namely, that the Bible contradicts itself. The key is to (you guessed it yet again) put each verse in its proper context.

Ephesians 2 and 1 Peter 3 are both necessary to the plan of salvation. We are saved by grace through faith, which Paul emphasized to show that it is God’s gift we receive by trusting Him rather than working for it. And, we are also saved by baptism, which Peter pointed out to emphasize the washing away of sin that sparks the new life. What does James mean by “works?” Read James 2 and you’ll see he was discussing the kind of actions that will naturally flow from the heart of someone who has faith in God. What did Paul mean by “works” in Romans? He was clearly taking aim at works of merit done to try to earn God’s favour.

Using one verse against the other to score a rhetorical point is shamefully disrespectful to God’s Word. He did not contradict Himself. Our understanding of what He wants must be an understanding that does not depend on making one verse fight another.

Questions: 

What is deductive reasoning? And what is inductive reasoning? What role do these play in our Bible Study?

Do you know of any other examples where people will make an effort to pit the Bible against itself without any context? 

Kevin Cleary

November 2, 2025

I AM the way to God: I did not come
To light a path, to blaze a trail, that you
May simply follow in my tracks, pursue
My shadow like a prize that’s cheaply won.
My life reveals the life of God, the sum
Of all he is and does. So how can you,
The sons of night, look on me and construe
My way as just the road for you to run?
My path takes in Gethsemane, the Cross,
And stark rejection draped in agony.
My way to God embraces utmost loss:
Your way to God is not my way, but me.
Each other path is dismal swamp, or fraud.
I stand alone: I am the way to God.

I AM the truth of God: I do not claim
I merely speak the truth, as though I were
A prophet (but no more), a channel, stirred
By Spirit power, of purely human frame.
Nor do I say that when I take his name
Upon my lips, my teaching cannot err
(Though that is true). A mere interpreter
I’m not, some prophet-voice of special fame.
In timeless reaches of eternity
The Triune God decided that the Word,
The self-expression of the Deity,
Would put on flesh and blood — and thus be heard.
The claim to speak the truth good men applaud.
I claim much more: I am the truth of God.

I AM the resurrection life. It’s not
As though I merely bear life-giving drink,
A magic elixir which (men might think)
Is cheap because though lavish it’s not bought.
The price of life was fully paid: I fought
With death and black despair; for I’m the drink
Of life. The resurrection morn’s the link
Between my death and endless life long sought.
I am the firstborn from the dead; and by
My triumph, I deal death to lusts and hates.
My life I now extend to men, and ply
Them with the draught that ever satiates.
Religion’s page with empty boasts is rife:
But I’m the resurrection and the life.

D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, p492-93

 

~ Kevin Cleary

October 26, 2025

Here is another of Jack Wilkie’s thoughts related to bad Bible study. I want to add another element to it. If we are not using context what filter are we using to determine when a passage applies to us and when it doesn’t? I would suggest it’s often our subjective opinion. If I like what a passage says then it’s not about me. It’s not by mistake that everyone makes Jeremiah 29:11 about them it makes us feel nice. 

Bad Bible Study assumes everything is directly about me

The Bible was certainly written for me and you but that doesn’t mean it was written to me and you. Jeremiah 29:11 may say “I know the plans I have for you…” but the “you” God was talking to there isn’t the high school graduate receiving a Hallmark card and $20 from the sweet older lady at church. Looking at the (you guessed it) context tells us who the “you” is, and once we understand that we can understand what the verse was truly intended to mean.

The other way to insert ourselves into the text is to read the Bible’s “you” individualistically. Our southern brethren use language more effectively than the rest of us when they divide “you” and “y’all,” and the King James Version has a similar distinction with its use of “you” and “ye.” The commands and promises given to “you” in the Bible are generally given to a people, not to a person. Yes, God wants us each to obey those commandments, but they were given to all of us to do together, helping each other along the way. And yes, He has great promises in store for each of us, but those are promises we share with all of our brothers and sisters, and we would do well to emphasize the shared nature of what we have in God.

When we read ourselves into the Bible, we end up with an individualistic religion that elevates ourselves and misses the text’s intended meaning.

What are some examples you can think of where a command or promise does not apply to us today? What are some common misunderstandings associated with this? 

George Dehoff made an interesting point in a short book I read many years ago. He said “The Bible is written in such a way that if a man wishes to cavil he may.” What Dehoff was saying was that if we are not very careful, we will use the varied nature of scripture to justify ourselves instead of to reflect our shortcomings and grow. 

Kevin Cleary

October 19, 2025

Jack Wilkie wrote a short article a few years ago for Think magazine I have adapted some of his thoughts for a few bulletin notes that might help us as we approach our study of scripture. 

Bad Bible study ignores context

With the Bible being divided up into easily cited verses, we can end up treating it unlike any other written text. Imagine taking letters from your spouse and dividing them up line by line, then grabbing individual lines out of each letter and recombining them to make up a whole new paragraph. Yeah, it would be factually true to say she wrote those words. But she didn’t write them in that order, and may not mean them the way they come across when recombined that way. We realize it would be absurd to do that with letters from a spouse, and yet it’s the primary way many (if not most) study the Bible.

The Bible was not written as a series of disconnected verses to be strung together as we choose. Every verse is placed within multiple layers of context for a reason, and it cannot be properly understood unless it is understood in the light of those contexts.

Before you can assert the meaning of the verse, look at the immediate context (2-3 verses before and after). In Philippians 4:13 Paul did say he can do all things through Christ who strengthened him. But without context we end up defining “all things” the way we want to rather than the way Paul meant it. A quick scan of the immediate context shows he was talking about enduring any situation in life with Jesus’ help. 

After the immediate context, zoom out a bit and look at the context of the section. The section can range from a couple of paragraphs to a few chapters, depending on the book. In Philippians 4 Paul is talking about having the right mindset of peace and joy. So, 4:13 continues in that theme and loses its intended power if it is made to be more broad than intended. 

Then, look at the context of the book. In Philippians Paul is speaking about the joy that results when Christians unite for the Gospel, a needed message for a church who was divided (4:2-3). He speaks of the sacrifices Jesus made for us, along with the sacrifices Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus made for the Gospel. 1:21 is key – “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” When you’re living in service to Christ, with the promise of being with Him when you die, you can get through anything. Thus, the foundation is laid for 4:13.

Philippians 4:13 is maybe the most well-known of verses taken out of context and therefore the easiest to diagnose, but the truth is we can stumble into this mistake with virtually any verse in the entire Bible. The Bible student must engage in the work of exposing the context in order to understand a verse correctly. 

A good habit to help with context is to work on developing outlines of the books you are study this way you can get a quick overview of a book and better remember how what you are reading fits with what you have already read.

~ Kevin Cleary

October 12, 2025

Here are some real responses from people who were asked who is Jesus:

• Jesus is real in the sense that he exists for those who want him to exist.
• We don’t know many historical facts concerning Jesus, but apparently he was a rabbi who was an example of compassion. Since then he has been exploited by Christians especially Americans.
• Jesus is about as real as “real” as Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or King Arthur.
• Jesus was a man we should pity more than revile or worship. He suffered from what contemporary psychologists now know to be delusions of grandeur, bipolar disorder, and probably acute schizophrenia.
• An apocalyptic prophet who bet wrong and died as a result. He should be ignored not celebrated.

The truly sad thing about these statements is that some people sincerely believe these ideas.

In a similar example once while visiting a house to provide some information about spray foam insulation. The subject of Jesus came up. The owner of the home proudly informed me of some inside knowledge he had about the subject. Jesus, he said, was actually a part of a Jewish sect called Essenes. Furthermore, there are other ancient gospels which the Catholic Church forced out of the Bible that tell us what Jesus was really like. As he enlightened me I waited to hear where he was finding this new information and what it meant to him. He said he had read a book recently by a Lady, whose name he could not remember. I asked if it could it have been Barbra Thiering, to which he replied, “yeah she’s the one.” I gently pointed out that no reputable scholar, even those who don’t take the New Testament seriously, accept Thiering’s conclusions. He had read a book called “The book Jesus wrote” claiming that Jesus didn’t die but lived on and wrote the gospel of John.

The reason these strange and inaccurate perceptions of Jesus persist is not because people don’t have access to accurate information. Rather it’s because people are deeply uncomfortable with the challenge the Biblical and historical Jesus presents.

If the bible represents an accurate depiction of Jesus life and teaching then people need to live and act completely differently than they do.

John described the problem well when he said “ The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”

~ Kevin Cleary